'And that's the story,' Jackson said, turning off the old mission recording.

Ian breathed out hard. He had heard some things about Liberty Squad from the other Agency squads, but he had no idea that the Klisk had been involved. That Liberty Squad was first contact with the deadly race of genetic monsters.

Ian glanced at his team. Everyone was dealing with this new information their own way. Maeve was staring at the screen in disbelief. Aaron was writing on his PDA with Alice overseeing his notes. Cameron was slowly scrolling through some frames to capture the faces of Liberty Squad agents. Even without orders, Olympus knew this video was a goldmine of information. This world had changed them.

'I know that was probably hard to re-live, Mr. Knox,' Ian said, standing up. 'Thank you for humouring us.'

'Ah, it's alright,' Jackson said with a smile. 'I've had all the nightmares, I've watched this over and over again. But... listen, as far as I know I was the only survivor. Who else survived?'

'That seems like a fair trade.'

So Ian told Jackson what he knew. That Agent Hollywood had left with Agent Salem to create the Realmic Concord, the rebellion facing off against the Alliance of Three. Of Agent Chicago and her mercenaries within Copperhead. Then Cameron spoke.

'I think there's another survivor, sir.'

Before anyone could ask, the ship rocked. Something had smacked into the hull as they hovered in orbit.

'Hey!' Phil said over the intercom. 'We got a problem. The Klisk on the planet woke up and they're hungry. I need gunners!'

Aaron, Cameron, Thanatos and Snezhana left the room, leaving Ian and Maeve with Jackson.

'Jackson, is there a role you can do during a ship battle?' Ian asked. Jackson blinked at how quickly Ian's voice went from friendly to commander.

'Oh, uh... I was a communications officer. We did have a trick against Klisk, but it'll burn out the communications disk.'

The ship shook again and Ian nodded. 'Do what you need, use one of my engineers if you have to. Maeve?'

Maeve didn't need to be told. She nodded and left the room for the medical section, to prime anyone there for duty. Ian led Jackson to the bridge and sat him down at the communications console, then took his position in the co-pilot's chair.

'What are we dealing with?' Ian asked Phil.

'It's a Hydra,' Phil said, as if Ian would understand that classification. When Ian didn't respond, Phil explained. 'Three-headed flying Klisk that can regenerate and grow smaller bioforms.'

'Lovely,' Ian growled.

Phil turned the ship to dodge a strike from the colossal bioform, spinning the Cerberus into the coldness of space and out of the atmosphere. Luckily, gravity was still active, so no one should have been sickened by this maneuver. Finally, the weapons of the ship began to fire at the incoming Klisk as the Agents arrived at the gunnery stations.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

'Jackson, give me an estimate!'

Jackson was typing on the communications console, re-working the entire purpose of their communications array and converting the energy it sent out from quantum communication to quantum radiance. Basically, Jackson was packing what the array sent out as much as possible, so it fired out a beam of radiant energy as opposed to simply grains of code, but keeping it on the same energy type. It was a brilliant move, but the Alliance had not shared this with other factions, keeping this method for themselves.

'The software patch is done, I need someone to fix the dish itself outside.'

'Outside?!' Ian shouted. 'During a firefight?!'

'You told me to do it, so I will. This thing will burn through the Klisk like a meringue in your mouth.

'Not you,' Ian said, calling up engineering. 'Riley, I need someone completely insane to patch the communications array right now.'

'So you're asking me?' Riley asked. 'I'm flattered. But I'm not certified for zero-G repairs. I doubt Junior is, too.'

'Find someone and patch them into Jackson's comm unit.'

Riley ended the call and looked at the engineers in the bay. Junior was too young for such dangerous work, Riley wasn't certified for it, so that left either Minnie, Sasha or the man in the corner that Lee St. Benedict had brought aboard.

'I need someone to go outside and patch the communications array. Space walking. Can anyone here do it?'

Sasha immediately turned to the man in the corner. He looked up from his PDA, cigarette in his mouth hanging loosely but not lit. His brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and his face bore an unkempt beard.

'I can do it,' he said simply. 'Suit?'

Riley nodded and walked over to the body-fit space suits, handing one over to the man. He put it on over his clothes, then grabbed the helmet beside him and, to the surprise of everyone, lit his cigarette before putting the helmet on.

'You could asphyxiate like that,' Riley said.

'Nah,' the man said, chuckling. 'My lungs can breathe coal these days.'

The man walked over to the airlock, so Riley opened his comm again. 'I'm sending one of Lee's people. He volunteered.'

'Who?'

The man turned, his visor popping up and releasing a wave of smoke. He was grinning. 'Moondog.'

'Moondog?' Riley asked incredulously. 'We're doomed.'

Moondog left the airlock, connected to the ship with an umbilical cord. He turned on his mag-lock boots and slowly made his way onto the hull. He breathed in the smoky goodness around him, then pumped some more air to level him out. He had an hour, with all the smoking. Still, a time limit made him quick.

A spike hit the hull in front of Moondog, then pulled out. It was a small breach. Moondog was already here... so he knelt down and patched the hole, tinting his visor to protect his vision from the flashing. In a few minutes, it was like it had never been there, so he continued.

'How are we doing, Moondog?' Jackson asked over the comms.

'Detour. Hull breach. All patched now, though.'

'A man who goes above and beyond. My favourite,' Jackson said. Moondog could hear the smile even from the comms.

'What am I doing, Knox?'

'Get to the communications array and take off the control panel. You need to set every meter to full except Output 6, which you set to 0.'

Moondog thought about this, then grinned, sucking in some more tobacco smoke and made his way to the communications array.

'Well, shit, I'm about to give you the power of the sun. Guess you shoulda called me Ra, huh?'

Jackson laughed, causing Ian to look at him in surprise.

Moondog opened the panel and followed the instructions, but an error code lit up, stating this setting would destroy the array.

'Bah, get off my back, Mother Goose,' Moondog groaned. He reached in and pulled the safety hatch, then flicked off the safety warning. 'I think you got one shot, Knox.'

'Thanks, Ra,' Jackson said. 'Ian, you got one shot thanks to Moondog. Make sure your best gunner is on it.'

'Oh, we have a good gunner. Aaron, you're up!'